I was disappointed that the humiliating tennis game in Money (BBC2, Sunday), between lardy British adman-turned-film director John Self and his toned and tanned American agent Fielding Goodney, wasn't overlooked by glassed-in balconies, with New York's middle management staring on, their faces as thin as credit cards. I missed the silly consumer goods names from the book, like the Blastfurter snacks Self constantly grazes on. I was dismayed that the expression "rug rethink", for a haircut, didn't crop up (crop up!). Maybe Self's rug, which is a disaster, will be rethought in part two on Wednesday.

And it took me a while to accept Nick Frost as John Self. Because he wasn't quite like my John Self – something that's always going to be a problem in dramatisations of well-loved novels, especially well-loved novels as character-centric as Money, Martin Amis's brilliant and hilarious portrait of greed and anarchic self-destruction. But once I'd got over the fact that Frost wasn't my Self (as opposed to myself, which would be more worrying), he grew on me.

Dissatisfied and jetlagged (from bouncing between Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's America), a glutton for junk food and punishment and pornography, a human dog searching for happiness through pain and its relief, he is properly horrible. Yet it's hard not to feel sympathetic – he's a hateful guy it's impossible to hate. Frost does him with just the right mix of vileness and vulnerability. He grew on me to the extent that he's half way to eclipsing my own John Self. Maybe after part two he will have permanently replaced him.

There are other fine performances: Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men's Pete Campbell, worryingly blond) as the synthetic Goodney; Emma Pierson as Selina Street, Self's cheating minx back in Blighty; Tim Pigott-Smith as his lowly landlord father (or is he?), who summons his son to the pub so he can invoice him for his life so far, including Christmas presents. But this is John Self's show, and Nick Frost steals it. A great performance.

Of course it's not going to be the same as the book. And Amis must be especially hard to bring to the screen, because so much of him is about the vividness of language (or wordflashes, as he probably calls it). But overall, Tom Burford and Chris Hurford's adaptation is loyal in tone – it feels, and looks, like Money. Of all the BBC's 80s season, this is the most ambitious programme, and the best, so far. I think – I hope – that Martin Amis will approve.

Rewind a decade or so, and here's another film: The Stones in Exile: An Imagine Special (BBC1, Sunday) – a documentary this time, but a beautifully atmospheric one that perfectly captures its time. It's the summer of 1971, and the Rolling Stones are in the South of France to escape sky-high British income taxes and to create Exile on Main Street. Here they are, then, with all their hair and swagger, and now with all their wrinkles.

Mick Jagger aside, who still has something about him, the others – Keith, Bill and Charlie – are just ordinary geezers. They could easily be cabbies who got lucky. Very, very lucky. Hell, it looks fun back then: hanging out at Keef's palatial villa, surrounded by sunshine and light, drugs and beautiful women. Sometimes they'd pop down to the basement to make music, music that would end up on a seminal masterpiece. Why wasn't I in the Rolling Stones? Well, I was only six at the time, that's the only reason I can think of.

I'm even enjoying Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections (BBC2, Sunday). It must be the weather. Yes, it's Top Gear science, which inevitably involves firing a car through the air (you'd think the Hamster would be having terrifying flashbacks, but he looks fine about it). And then shooting guns in a quarry. But then this one is about HMS Illustrious, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, so it's bound to be a bit boys-toysy.

I had a ride on the Illustrious once, and it was pretty impressive. But then I went on an American aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, the actual one from Top Gun (Take my breath awaaaay), which was so big it made Illustrious look like a pedalo. If you were making a documentary about the Enterprise, I imagine you'd have to call in Clarkson.